A Love Hate Relationship with R is Born

I am interested in arms transfers.  I am also interested in networks. In my dissertation I am combining those two interests.  I think that I am looking at some really cool relationships.  This is well and good. However, to do this fun research stuff I have had to leave my comfort zone of STATA and work in R.  Now I am fighting through the twin troubles of learning new software (and a language to code in) and learning new models.

I did a preliminary round of study to make sure that I could do this analysis in an advanced statistics class last semester.  Over the summer R changed versions. The package I use to do my ERGM analysis broke.  That package was updated.  Then my code broke and nothing worked the past two weeks as I have tried to get my analysis done for my dissertation.

After hours of frustrated Googling, I found a note on a blog (that I can't find a link to now... arrrrrgh!) about R namespaces and needing to remove the igraph and statnet packages and reinstall statnet first in order for it to work correctly.  I did this (without reinstalling igraph, just to be sure).  Now things run.  Now I can actually do analysis and not debugging and firefighting with the software.

Enough of the hate. I love Rstudio.  After running through some model specifications last night I decided to try out the knitr package. Awesome.  I still have a lot to learn to make things into real good documents and documentation of my analyses, but you can check out this link to my output for my test models here.

And here is a network graph of France's (egocentric) arms network during the 1950s.  The network is created from the main world network.  The world network accounts for all arms transactions from 1950 to 1959.  The sociomatrix shows a 1 if state i sold weapons to state j at any point during the 10 year window.

Created Using R. Data come from SIPRI.

Putting Dollars in STATA Graphics Titles

This post is mostly so I remember how to do this.

There is a problem that I run into a lot when I am plotting in STATA.  The $ symbol is used by STATA to call up various macros.  When you try to add it as a currency symbol in a graph title it ends up disappearing. Take, for instance the following code and its associated graphical output:

twoway dot percapmil id, mlabel(description) mlabpos(12)
scheme(s1mono)
xlabel(0(1)5)
ylabel(, angle(0))
xtitle("")
ytitle("$1000 US Per Military Personnel")
title("Per Capita (Mil. Personell) Spending of US and Russian Customers", size(medium))
subtitle("1992-2000 and 2001-2002")

Notice the y-axis label is missing the dollar sign.  I really want to emphasize the fact that the y axis represents money spent by states for defense.  How can I add the dollar sign to the graph?  This requires using a STATA Markup Control Language (SMCL) workaround.  

The modified code looks like this (just taking the relevant line of code):

ytitle("{c $|}1000 US Per Military Personnel")

With this modification the graph looks the way that I want it to. 

It's a little bit inconvenient to have to add the extra code {c $|} just to get the symbol to show up like it should, but once you know what the workaround is you can get your work done instead of endlessly Googling.  Now back to work.

Feudal Domains - Congress, the Military, and Arms Procurement

As part of my dissertation research I am examining the processes through which states make foreign policy decisions.  I am specifically interested in the policies that lead to the export of arms from one state to another. My dissertation focuses on this decision-making in the United States and Russia.  Today's reading of Chapter 5 of Richard Halloran's book To Arm a Nation proved to be a rich source of material.

This chapter focuses on the "Feudal Domains" within both the military and Congress which create unnecessary duplication of efforts in acquisition of arms.  The problems of acquisition are a result of turf battles within both institutions - Congress and the Military. The issue in Congress is the temptation to use the vast military budget to gain political advantage:

"Congress is the site of dozens of fiefs, each more concerned with its own turf....The primary reason is simple - money.  The military budget is so immense that everyone seeks to get as much of it as possible spent in his home state or election district." (Halloran 1986, 146-7)

Within the defense department, the problems come as a result of turf battles between powerful procurement chiefs that are exacerbated by the inter service rivalry within the military more generally.

"But the personnel fiefs are minor compared with those in the procurement of arms, equipment, vehicles ammunition, spare parts, and the vast storehouse of supplies for a modern military force.  It is surely the most divided and conflicting set of fiefs within the military establishment, rarely developing weapons that would be used by more than one service and hence could be produced economically." (Halloran 1986, 161)

Another point that is made by Halloran is of interest to those trying to research processes of decision making.   That is the difference between the people and the system.  He discusses some of the idiosyncrasies of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He contends that they don't function well as advisers to the President and the Secretary of Defense.  The written reports and advice that comes from the Joint Chiefs is "...generally irrelevant, normally unread, and most always disregarded." (Halloran 1986, 163).  This is in contrast to informal meetings between the Joint Chiefs and the Secretary of Defense which were characterized by Harold Brown (President Carter's SECDEF).  Brown noted that these face-to-face meetings were "extremely helpful" (ibid).

Of particular interest to those interested in the processes leading to exports are the vignettes on page 170 of ways that Members of Congress push for extra production of weapons systems that benefit their district.

• Carl Levin (D, MI) - Pushes for an additional 120 M1 tanks (840 as opposed to the 720 requested by military)
• Howard Metzenbaum (D, OH) - critic of military spending but big supporter of the B1 bomber program because of the components made in Ohio.
• Sam Nunn (D, GA) - "respected for his evenhanded approach [to defense spending]" fought to have additional C5 aircraft built in Georgia even though the Army and Air Force favored a new plane.

In these cases it seems that there would be pressure from Congress to find foreign outlets for such weapons systems built in their home districts.  If we can sell such items to allies across the world, it is even better for the local economies that Members of Congress represent so fiercely.  Is that a reasonable assumption to make?  Can I think of this as one of the drivers of US arms export policy?

References

Halloran, Richard. To Arm a Nation: Rebuilding America’s Endangered Defenses. 1st ed. Macmillan, 1986.

Bringing The War Home - Afghanistan, Georgia, the US and Russia's Reaction

The Russia-Georgia rift shows no sign of healing.  This piece provides an interesting twist to the arms transfer debate.  How much is a state's overall capability enhanced by bringing back the TOE equipment from a 940 person contingent back to Georgia?  Will those M4s and armored HMMWV (HUMVEES) really change the balance of power in the region?  Russia is worried enough about this possibility that they have actually filed a note at the US embassy.

The study of arms transfers will never be boring.  States attach too much significance to weapons to ever make them a purely economic commodity.

“We view it as a very significant issue that weapons used by Georgian troops in Afghanistan should not be supplied to Georgia,” Lukashevich said, adding that Saakashvili’s regime could use them against Abkhazia, South Ossetia and Russian nationals residing there as well.

The spokesman also warned against any military cooperation with Tbilisi, citing “the grave consequences for global and Caucasus security” that can be caused by “Saakashvili’s unstable and irresponsible regime.”

Afghan Weapons Should be Kept Away from Georgia – Russian Foreign Ministry | World | RIA Novosti:

'via Blog this'

Odds and Ends: Russian Foreign Policy

I recommend all of Karaganov's columns for concise and clear analysis of Russian politics and for interesting policy prescriptions.  His latest article is no exception.  You can read the entire article by following the link below.

Russia's Luck Has Run Out Sergey Karaganov Russia has been unbelievably lucky in its relations with foreign powers over the past 12 years. But despite positive trends, things are looking less rosy on the country's domestic political front. Read more >

One item that Karaganov picks up on is one that is echoed in a column from Dmitri Trenin.  Karagonov writes: 

In terms of economic development, it is crucial that Russia link itself more closely to the Asian economic powers. This can be accomplished by developing Siberia and the Far East. Russia needs to attract huge foreign investment in the region's infrastructure, raw materials processing and timber. In return, Russia would need to provide highly favorable tax incentives and legal guarantees. 

To boost these efforts, the Kremlin should consider moving part of its functions to a major city in Siberia or the Far East — a "second capital" of sorts. For Russia to have any hope of rivaling Asia's spectacular rise, it would need a modern-day project on a par with the construction in the early 1700s of St. Petersburg, Peter the Great's "window to Europe." 

 Trenin writes (link to article here):

The chief new element in the relationship is easy to see. It is the historical role reversal. In 1979, China's gross domestic product was a mere 40 per cent of that of the Russian republic within the Soviet Union. Nowadays, China's GDP is between four and five times bigger than Russia's. At the heyday of the Sino-Soviet confrontation, the Soviet Union was a military superpower and the People's Liberation Army was essentially preparing for a "people's war". Today, China's defense budget is the world's second largest, way ahead of the 5th-placed Russia. Even more importantly, China's research and development budget dwarfs Russia's. Ultimately - Russians, who heretofore have never lived with a strong China, need to adjust to the new reality. 

For the Russians, of course, having refused in a previous era a junior partnership arrangement with the US, to run now into China's embrace would be not only bitter irony - but supreme folly. Right now, Moscow is busy to craft an Asia policy that is more than a China one. They are already reaching out to Japan, are strengthening relations with South Korea, and are revamping their long-time strategic bonds with India - by now much frayed. They are also seeking economic and security integration with Central Asia, which the Chinese are increasingly viewing as their own backyard.

The irony of Russia's focus on the west and missile shields and problems in Europe is that conflict with another state is more likely to come in one of the Central Asian republics with interference from China.  In terms of what I usually think about on this blog - how will these shifting alliances and economic development change the way that arms are sold throughout the world, and throughout this region?

"Why Does Russia Support Dictators?"

This article in RIA has an interesting take on Russia's stand in Syria. In it Fyoder Lykonov argues that Russia is just being consistent in its foreign policy on interventionism in general.

Is Russia's policy really that short-sighted? Its prospects for having influence in the Middle East look vague indeed. The reserve of confidence built up during the Soviet period has been depleted, and it is unclear whether today's Russia is ready to step out onto the global stage. But the rest of Russia's policy is not so unreasonable. 

Moscow has made it clear that bypassing legitimate measures is not an option, this just results in random actions like the invasion of Iraq in 2003, which everyone  now recognizes was a mistake. So others can either respect Russia’s opinion by taking a neutral stance on the conflict in Syria, or act at their own risk and peril, something which it appears no one is willing to do.

The focus is, of course, on Russia’s global status, but Moscow also wants to keep the door open for an alternative solution to be found. The only other option is a military and political tunnel which will inevitably lead to a war with international ramifications.

 I have no problem with the idea that Russia is acting on principle in the Syrian case.  It is clear that Russia is not opposed to states taking their own interests into their own hands - as in its dispute with Georgia a few years ago.  Those states will then need to deal with the fallout of their own actions. Russia is opposed to cloaking those interventions with international respectability.  While this is a perfectly valid worldview, and consistent with the premium that Moscow places on state sovereignty, it will not make Russia's adherence to the principle any easier, or any more palatable to the narrative of human rights and compassionate interventionism that is the basis of the dialogue in Syria presently. 

World Arms Network 1950 and 1975

I am starting work on my dissertation.  The first thing I needed to do was to get all of my arms transfer data into a form that I can work with it for network analysis.  That effort is going nicely.  I spent a little time today playing around with the graphs for the year 1950.  Here is the worldwide arms network for 1950:

I also ran a quick graph of the arms network in 1975.  The thing that jumps out is the difference in the number of states that are importing weapons.  The graph as an analytical tool is nearly useless given the crowded nature of the arms market.  This is why I have to utilize real Social Network Analysis tools to get at the questions I really want to answer.  Graphs are fun, though.